Archive for the ‘Food’ Category
Posted by terrepruitt on August 29, 2009
You know when you are feeling tired or can’t make it through a workout think about what you have eaten. It really makes a difference. We don’t have to rely on the experts to tell us that, just think about it. There are a lot of ways people can eat, vegan, raw, vegetarian, etc., but stepping away from a diet that has a name and just trying to eat less processed foods and foods that are less processed can really make a difference in how you feel.
If you pay attention to how you feel for a week or so, then try to cut out some of the processed foods that you normally eat you will notice a difference if you take note.
Sometimes you might not need to adjust your workout or the exercise it could be just fine, it could just be that you don’t have the proper nutrition to fuel your body. A blog is not the place to get informaiton on what your body actually needs because everyone is different. I am just suggesting that you take a look at your diet and see if you could make a few adjustments to get better NUTRITION and see how that affects you. If you want specifics you need to see a nutritionist or work with a personal trainer.
Sometimes we think we are eating healthy because the packaging claims it is “natural” or “wholesome”, but the truth is more processed foods are just full of chemicals. Just look at what you are eating. Check the INGREDIENTS, not just the big words on the package that make claims.
I believe that good nutrition affects your ENTIRE body: you physical body and your mental state. If your body has property nutrition you have more energy and you FEEL better. You can actually make it through a workout without just wanting it to be over, and then that makes your body feel good and then your mind feels great because you feel like you can conquer the world.
We were at a gathering today in San Jose with a lot of good food. Not too much processed food. A lot of vegetables. I am sure I am going to feel great tomorrow. Good nutrition makes a difference.
Posted in Food | Tagged: Good nutrition, nutrition, San Jose exercise, San Jose Personal Trainer, San Jose Workout, work out San Jose | 4 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on August 27, 2009
I was making rice tonight and I thought, this is so easy, but not everyone knows about this funny little trick, so I wanted to share.
I was not familiar with a rice maker until I met my husband. I was accustom to Uncle Ben’s white rice you make in a pot on the stove. The whole point being to make it fluffy and NOT sticky. But my husband wouldn’t eat that. He only ate “sticky rice”. And he makes it with a rice maker. Since my apartment in San Jose was really small I received a small one as a gift. It was so cute. We don’t have that one any longer.
Anyway, the way he taught me how to cook rice in a rice cooker was to pour the rice in. To me it doesn’t matter how much because to me left over rice is fine. So, pour the rice in. And if it is white rice, rinse it. I hate this part. I always lose rice because in our present rice maker my hand is just that little bit too small that rice escapes when I try to get out most of the water. But usually I only lose a little bit so it works out ok. After you rinse it all you have to do it make sure you have enough water to cover the rice up to the mid-point of your first finger’s knuckle. What? Yeah, I know, odd, but it works.
You put your finger on top of the rice and make sure the water reaches up to half way up your finger only to the first joint. Always works. Rice comes out perfect. How, because Hubby and I have different size fingers, I don’t know. But it works.
But low and behold, that only works for white rice. We found out that you have to add more water for brown rice and then that also means it takes longer to cook. Took two times of waiting for the rice to be done and then having it be crunchy for me to figure that one out!
Sometimes I put a little bit of garlic olive oil in there or lemon infused oil (learned the lemon one from a friend—yum!). Either oil gives the rice a slight flavor plus helps it NOT stick to the pot. Love that.
As you can see from the picture there are measures on the actual pot, never used those. Sounds like an exercise in patience to me. I just dump, rinse, and fill. I rinse white rice well, but not the brown rice. What about you, do you use the finger water level method?
Posted in Food | Tagged: brown rice, fluffy rice, Perfect rice, San Jose exercise, San Jose Workout, sticky rice, white rice, Workout San Jose | 4 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on July 28, 2009
I love coffee. I am not a connoisseur, but I love it. In the August 2009 copy of Self they touted that coffee has some amazing benefits.
The article, well, it is not so much an article as a few pages filled with pictures and facts, has one statement that says that if you want the healthiest coffee you should stick to the home brewed kind because the paper filters catch coffee compounds that can raise cholesterol.
Here are some highlights from that article. The information suggests that coffee MAY:
- assist in the prevention of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
- help your teeth with its “antibacterial and antiadhesive powers”
- reduce the risk of oral cancer by half
- help in limited cancer cell growth and DNA damage
- reduce the risk of breast cancer (in premenopausal women that drink 4 cups of regular coffee a day)
- help prevent gallstones
- reduce risk of nonmelanoma
- reduce chances of diabetes for people who drink 3 to 4 cups of regular or decaf
Information also states that drinking from 300 mg (3 cups of home brew) to 500 mg (16 oz Starbucks Pike Place Roast) in an hour could possibly make you panicky, increase stress hormones, and raise blood pressure.
Way surprising to me, it says that a shot of espresso “has less caffeine than a cup of drip does. Plus, one downside of espresso is that it may raise cholesterol.”
It also suggests to eat your cereal and dairy later, after your coffee because coffee might block the absorption of iron from fortified grains and could lower calcium uptake.
The pages reveal, along with a lot of other publications I’ve been seeing recently, that coffee helps you get through your workout. Not only does it give you a zing, it seems to block your brain from knowing your muscles are tired.
Those are just some highlights that somewhat focus on the health benefits.
Even though I teach my morning Nia classes in Willow Glen not too far from where I live, so I don’t have to get up super early, I still think I have more energy in the morning when I drink coffee. I don’t have any before I teach my evening class in San Jose, nor my late afternoon one in Los Gatos. But I feel like I need that extra “wake-up” in the morning. Do you drink coffee before your workout?
Posted in Food | Tagged: Alzheimer's, breast cancer, cholesterol, Coffee, health benefits, Los Gatos Nia, Los Gatos Workouts, Muscles, Nia Classes, Nia San Jose, Parkinsons’s, San Jose Starbucks, San Jose workouts, Self Magazine, Starbucks, Willow Glen Nia, Willow Glen workouts, workout classes | 6 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on July 21, 2009
Do you know how much fiber is ideal? Do you know how much fiber the average American eats?
First of all let me tell you a little “un-detailed” story. I visited a friend on the outskirts of San Jose one day and she had a snack sitting on her counter. She asked me to try it and she said if I liked it I could have it because she didn’t really like them and they “didn’t agree” with her partner. Well, I liked them, and so she let me have them. When I got home, I had to laugh. I was looking at the Nutrition information on the package and one serving works out to be almost as much fiber as the average American gets per day. So it dawned on me that maybe it “didn’t agree” with her partner because of that.
Ideally we should be eating about 35 to 50 grams of fiber a day. The average American eats less than 1/3 of that—yes, about 10 grams a day.
Now, as a refresher, fiber is the plant material that is not digested by humans. Our digestive enzymes just can’t cut it. It can be found in whole grain, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and beans.
So, I’ll leave you with this suggestion, try to add a little bit more fiber in your daily intake. Do not add a lot of fiber all at once. But do try a little bit a day. What could you add to your diet today that would add fiber to it?
Posted in Food | Tagged: Average American, beans, digestive enzymes, fiber, Fiber intake of average American, fruit, grams of fiber, nuts, San Jose work out, San Jose Workout, Vegetables | 6 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on July 18, 2009
You hear it, you know it, we need to be eating WHOLE grain. Ok, so, what does that mean? That means that “wheat flour”, “enriched wheat flour”, “multi-grain”, “100% wheat”, and anything other than WHOLE is not whole grain.
The whole grain is the bran; the outside of the grain where the fiber is, the endosperm; which is the starchy middle part of the grain, and the germ; the little “seed” part in the middle where the vitamins, minerals and some fat are.
I think it is easy to think of a whole “grain” of corn than wheat because most of us have seen a whole kernel of corn, but not all of us have seen wheat. So think of a kernel of corn (ya have to think of one because my attempts of taking pictures of them did not result in something “postable”), you have the outside which is the bright yellow, then the inside which is kind of whitish and liquid starchy, then you have that little bright yellow “seed”. That is the whole grain. So corn—including popcorn is a whole grain.
Items made with “wheat flour” are not. Even though it is wheat it not a whole grain, is has to say “whole” grain wheat flour or “whole” wheat flour. Multi-grain CAN be whole grain, but it would have to say whole grain. Otherwise it could be a bunch of grains that aren’t whole so you are not getting the benefits of the entire grain.
My bread, has whole grain flour (and bulgur wheat, which the MyPyramid.gov shows as a whole grain, but wiki says traditionally it is “de-branned”) as you can see:
My cereal has whole grain.
My crackers do not have whole grain, it just says wheat flour, which means they are made from some form of wheat as opposed to corn or rice . . . but it does not say “whole” so it is not whole wheat.
I think that products can be misleading, so if you are interested in getting whole grain read the list of ingredients not just the package that might say, “100% Wheat” or “10 Grain”. The ingredients has to list the flour used as whole grain.
Posted in Food | Tagged: bran, endosperm, fiber, wheat, Whole grain, Whole grain products | 2 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on July 14, 2009
As you might agree our portion sizes contribute to the obesity epidemic in America.
In restaurants a meal is usually more than one serving of each item. I know that we recently went to Morton’s in downtown San Jose and my steak worked out to be probably about a serving and three quarters.
If we started eating the proper serving sizes I am convinced our obesity rates would go down.
In case you are familiar or you want a reminder:
1 gram = about a paper clip or a dime
4 g is a tsp (4 paper clips or 4 dimes)
| One serving of: |
Is about: |
| Meat |
a deck of playing cards |
| Cheese |
the equivalent of four dices |
| Salad greens |
the size of a softball |
| Baked potato |
the size of a computer mouse |
| Fruit |
the size of a tennis ball |
| Bread |
the size of an audio cassette
(but do people know what THAT is?) |
Also remember to check the serving size on the package. If you fill a bowl with cereal, just because that is one “bowl” doesn’t mean that is one “serving”. The bowl could hold more than one serving. Do you have a favorite food that you tend to eat more of than the serving size? C’mon you can tell me, what is it?
Posted in Food | Tagged: baked potato, Cheese, meat, Morton's San Jose, obesity, obesity epidemic, San Jose work out, Serving size, Workout San Jose | 10 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on June 11, 2009
Ok, you might know that I love asparagus. And I love it roasted. Well, even though we live in San Jose and seems like we can get great fruits and veggies all year round sometimes we buy asparagus and it is huge. Usually when it is that big in order to get to the good stuff you basically have to cut off a lot of it. Otherwise you are left with really woodsy-impossible-to-chew asparagus. Well, I don’t wanna give up that much of my yummy veggie, so I peel it. I cut off a little bit—like I normally would and then I peel the bottom portion. This does a few things:
1) it enables me to eat more of the vegetable,
2) it gets rid of the hard to chew part,
3) it reveals the soft insides of the stalk
Yay! I don’t have to get rid of half my asparagus.
Yes, I know that I am getting rid of the green, but I leave the top portion. You can try it yourself and see what works for you. Of course, you don’t have to be having roasted asparagus for this to work out, you can do it with whatever method you best enjoy your asparagus.
Posted in Vegetables | Tagged: Asparagus, fruit, roasted, roasted asparagus, San Jose, San Jose work out, Vegetables, veggies, work out method, workout method | 4 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on May 26, 2009
Oh, with the Memorial Day weekend behind us we are thinking forward to more barbeques, right? Especially since we had such spectacular weather in the San Jose Bay Area. Well, I honestly don’t know where this recipe came from. I will credit the person that I got it from about 10 years ago. I worked with this woman named Diana and she brought this salad to a potluck. I have been making it ever since.
Now, it is an exercise in imagination calling this a recipe, this really isn’t a recipe per se, because I don’t have amounts of ingredients. You need to decide that for yourself. I am just sharing the idea and giving you a ball park.
So basically you get some mangos peel then cube them. Then you cube or slice a peeled cucumber. Throw it all in a bowl, then you add lemon juice and salt. So easy. And so good. But you have to decide how much mango you want or how much cucumber. And the lemon and the salt again, all to taste. What I usually do is I bring a lemon and salt to the event so that people can add more if they like.
I usually start out with three mangos to an English cucumber. And I chop everything up in tiny little cubes because I like to get a bites of both mango and cucumber. I am a firm believer in eating the edible skin of my fruits and vegetables, so I don’t always cleanly peel the cucumber, but without the cucumber skin you can taste the mangos better, I think.
Mangos contain the antioxidants C and A. They also contain fiber. Even peeled cucumbers have vitamins and minerals that most could benefit from.
This salad is one of those super easy, yet packs-a-tasteful-punch kind of summer salad that I bet you will have on all of your barbeque tables from now on.
“Recipe” for Mango and Cucumber salad
- Peeled and cubed mangos and cucumbers, salt and lemon juice to taste.
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: barbeques, Bay Area, Bay Area Exercise. summer salad, bbq, cucumbers, fruit salad, lemon, lemon juice, mangos, punch, Recipe, salad, San Jose Bay Area, San Jose exercise | 7 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on May 12, 2009
Remember “0g trans fat per serving” does not equal ZERO trans fat per serving. I know, I know, but it is not me, that is the way it is. “0g trans fat per serving” could be 0.49g of transfat per serving. And if you eat a few servings of “’0g trans fat per serving’-could-be-0.49g-of trans-fat-per-serving’ you would be getting 1.47g of trans fat. FDA guidelines are such that if the item has less than 0.5g of trans fat per serving it can be listed as zero on the label.
If you want to get “0g trans fat per serving” you cannot trust the label that advertises such a thing you have to read the ingredients. You are looking for partially hydrogenated oil—any kind of oil that is partially hydrogenated oil. And if you really want to avoid trans fat you might want to skip hydrogentated oils. Although, hydrogenated oil is NOT transfat, the labeling is not strict so the ingredient could read hydrogenated and actually be partially.
There are quite a few websites that explain the chemical compounds of fat, so I am not going to do that here. I am just going to give a little overview. Fat has a certain chemical compound and a certain way the chains are formed. When a fat it partially hydrogenated the chemical bond is altered, more hydrogen atoms are added straightening the chain. Allowing for the chains to stack together more tightly and therefore remain solid. This altered state allows the fat to last longer which explains why it is in everything, it allows things to sit on the shelf longer, but rumor has it is sits in your body longer too. Not good.
This altered fat not only hangs around longer it has been proven to INCREASE (not just not help lower, but INCREASE) the “bad” cholesterol and decrease (not just leave alone, but DECREASE) our “good” cholesterol. We need to be eating healthy foods. To me, a food that DECREASES my good stuff and INCREASES my bad stuff, is not good.
So if you are interested in getting truly ZERO transfat, read the ingredients not just the hype on the labels.
Posted in Food | Tagged: healthy, healthy food, Trans fat | 6 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on April 30, 2009
Tonight we are going to dinner in Willow Glen, which is San Jose, but San Jose is large and spread out so having the sections help us determine the general location. Downtown Willow Glen is where I have my Nia classes, and is fairly close to downtown San Jose.** We went with a group of people who Yelp (so they are called Yelpers) on Yelp.com.
We are going to Opa. It is a Greek Restaurant. I am part Greek. I didn’t like Greek food until recently. Since we are going to a Greek Restaurant it started me thinking about one of my favorite snacks that I have been having lately. Greek Yogurt. I didn’t even know that there is such a thing until about two years ago—and I am Greek.
There are probably as many different brands of yogurt as there is (types of) Yoga, just like there are different brands of regular yogurt, but what you will find is that Greek Yogurt is thicker. It seems creamier. And it typically has less sugar and a lot more protein.
I have been eating plain non-fat to which I added a little bit of sugar, vanilla, and some super crunchy cereal. Yum. So I guess you could say that I am using it like milk. But I won’t drink non-fat milk, but I will eat non-fat yogurt and get a lot more protein! Plus with its smooth, think, creaminess it is like dessert for breakfast!
Also, during our heat wave I decided to make chicken salad sandwiches for dinner. I didn’t realize we were out of mayo when I decided on that refreshing dinner. But I used the yogurt instead. It worked great because it is more like mayo in consistency than regular yogurt. Don’t tell my husband because it also has less fat and more protein than mayo. And I did add a little bit of mayo so it would taste like regular mayonnaised chicken salad.
So next time you are in the store you might want to pick up some Greek yogurt and do some experimenting of your own with it. It can be used a little differently than regular yogurt. Then let me know what recipe you used it in. I am always looking for new things to make!
**Good thing I looked up the event before we went, granted it was after I posted this, but we actually ended up going to Opa in Los Gatos! It is important to check on event locations and not assume . . . . . 🙂
Posted in Food | Tagged: chicken salad, dessert for breakfast, Greek, Greek food, Greek snack, Greek yogurt, Los Gatos, Los Gatos Nia, Los Gatos Yoga, mayo substitute, Nia Classes, Nia in Los Gatos, Opa, San Jose, San Jose Greek Restaurant, San Jose Nia, San Jose Yoga, Willow Glen, Willow Glen Yoga, Yelp, Yelp.com, Yelpers, Yoga, Yoga Los Gatos | 6 Comments »
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